


it always ends the same

by buckybunnyteeth



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Clothing Kink, Emotional Baggage, Multi, No Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 02:46:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4902604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckybunnyteeth/pseuds/buckybunnyteeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark struggles with who he is, falls in love easily, and wears a skirt the whole way through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it always ends the same

"I love you. If you hadn't existed I would have had to invent you." Elaine Dundy from "The Dud Avocado"

...

Tony Stark thinks that the first time he put on a skirt, a proper one that fit and hadn't been dragged from his mom's closet, was when he was playing dress up at Aunt Peggy's house. His mother and father were at a benefit thingy and he was five so he had been dropped off to stay at; “The safest house in New York, hey Pal?”

Being five years old Tony was already too old for Peggy's box of 'Tony Distracting Toys', and he had been banned from dismantling her toaster (after the fourth time he did). So Peggy had to come up with a new way to distract the little son of a stark.

She had been just about ready to break out the scotch and just give him the bloody toaster when Tony had suddenly gone quiet. Peggy strode out of her Kitchen, special pickle and mustard sandwich in hand, and found the youngest Stark standing at her arm chair and carefully cradling a half finished skirt in his hands. It was the stillest she had ever seen the boy, even on the day he was born we had wiggled and squirmed, even in his sleep- even when being fed he moved like a mad thing.

(Peggy had held Maria's hand all the way through the birth, Howard was practically useless in his panic. She will never forget her friend’s faces when they held their child for the first time. Maria had looked so at peace, so in love with what she had made all the while looking like she was meeting a long lost friend again, like she knew him completely before he even knew himself. Howard had looked in awe and so terrified, but so devoted to what he was holding. They both gave their hearts to their son instantly, the promise held in their heartbeats.

Peggy had held Tony and she knew that her life would never be the same. Another Stark in the world, her job was going to get harder. All of the intellect of Howard, but also the kindness and fire of Maria. She was holding a baby that would one day change the world. And make her life a living hell in the process most likely)

“It’s pretty.”

Peggy smiled at the little boy.

“It is,” She agreed, watching as the boy ran his hand very carefully across the floral fabric.

“Are you making it?”

“Yes,” she laughed out, kneeling down beside Tony, “I am. Into a new dress.”

“Can’t you buy those?”

“Yes, but sometimes I can't spare the money. It’s cheaper to make my own.”

The small boy frowned down at the skirt, hands still being cautious as he held the fabric. It was dark and covered in red roses, beautiful enough to wear out at night but not so ornate as to relegate it strictly to night wear. It would come in handy on a future mission, but she didn’t say that to the little Stark.  
The small boy was holding the fabric in his little meaty hands and staring at it in the same manner as Howard stares at equations that no one has ever been able to solve. Peggy had known the small boy all of his life and she had never seen such a grown up look on his face. It was a little frightening. 

Slowly the boy moved the fabric up to under his chin, wiggling a hand out from behind it to smooth the fabric down along his front. A small smile appeared on his face and all at once Peggy felt like such a fool.

“Would you like one?”

Tony frowned up at her. It was adorable.

“What?”

“A dress, Anthony.”

His small frown deepened on his small face. 

“Am I allowed ‘ta? Aren’t dresses just for girls?”

“Why would you say that?”

“I never seen a man wear one before.”

“Then you live a very sheltered life, Anthony.”

The small Stark frowned at her, frustration plain on his face. Peggy sighed. That would have been funny to Steve.

“Listen to me, Tony,” Peggy said firmly, kneeling down to be at eye level with the child, “Anyone can wear a dress if that is what they wish to wear. They are clothes, and to say they belong to any gender exclusively is silly. Some people don’t like it when people other than women wear dresses, but those are not the kind of people that you should give the time of day, alright?”

Tony took in her words and gave her a very sage nod in return.

“Good. Now would you like a dress or a skirt?”

The small boy frowned.

“Which is better for playing in?”

Peggy winced. The boy’s idea of play was taking things apart and causing explosions. She blamed Howard.

“A skirt, I think. I can put pockets in for you to keep your tools in while you play.”

A blinding smile took over Tony’s face and once again Peggy was reminded of how much she loves the small boy. He had a tough road ahead of him (even if it was a higher one than everyone else’s), and if a pretty skirt was going to make it easier than god damn it she would make him all the skirts in the world.

“Thank you, Aunty Peggy.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Anthony. You’re going to help me make it. Come along.”

…

Skirts became a staple in Tony’s wardrobe from then on. He wore them all the time, and by the age of twenty he lost all the shame in his mind and began wearing them outside of his house (and a few select clubs). The media used it as evidence to further their eccentric-uncaring-unstable-billionaire persona they had adorned him with, and Tony didn’t mind as much as he should. He would mind later. After Afganistan. 

He stopped caring. He wore skirts and blew up the world with weapons adorned with his father’s chosen name. He felt nothing, he slept with everyone and strutted down the main streets of everywhere wearing top designers latest skirts and dresses.

He was toxic and loud and became everything that the tabloids had deemed him just so he wouldn’t have to feel a thing.

And then Pepper Potts came along.

He thinks he made a space in his chest for a heart the minute he saw her and decided she should never know that fact in the same breathe. 

God she became his everything. And he had a large concept of everything.

She encouraged him to be better.

But he didn’t listen.

She would leave soon enough.

...

After his parents died when he was seventeen Tony went out and got rip-roaring drunk. The next day he woke up in bed with so many people, people who had shared their bodies with him last night, and he felt sick.

He felt alone and sick. His father had disapproved of his sexuality. Or at least he assumed he did. He was never around enough for Tony to be sure.

…

James Rupert Rhodes, his Rhodey- god he was the most beautiful person Tony had ever met. Beautiful and smart and full of a kind of Captain America honor that made Tony jealous. And best of all he didn’t put up with any of Tony’s shit, but he didn’t leave him either. It was a paradox that was hard for the genius to understand.

It was easy to get Rhodey into his bed. Easy to seduce him into every part of his life.

He loved, loved, loved Tony’s skirts. They drove him crazy. Tony wore them more than he wore pants during those years, he had never felt so beautiful sober before. Before he knew how it felt to have Rhodey standing behind him, slipping his hands up his skirt. Just skin and cashmere.

God it was intoxicating.

But those years ended when Rhodey got promoted, when he got told by some five star fuck head that he needed to stop ‘fucking around with that Stark freak’ and man up if he wanted to get anywhere, to be anyone.

Rhodey was mad. But not mad enough to ignore the General. He left Tony’s bed and gave back the ring that he had never even worn and walked out. 

Tony made him liaison to his company. It was the most vindictive thing he could think of to do.

They stayed friends because Tony couldn’t blame him. Not for a second.

…

He stopped wearing them after the cave.

He didn’t want to be a shred of who he used to be.

He didn’t want any of that to grow back.

But it did.

…

The first time he met Pepper Potts – or rather the first time he remembered meeting her- he was laying on a bear skin rug in his father’s old mansion, wearing his favourite knit summer dress and designing the most deadly missile known to man.

She introduced herself with a blank expression and neutral smile, and that most certainly wouldn’t do.

“What do you think of my dress, Miss Potts?”

“I think I have the exact same on, Mr Stark. I will have to take it out of my work rotation.”

“Do you intend to be wearing a lot of sun dresses?”

“I intend to be prepared.”

Tony smiled and something flashed behind Peppers eyes that told him she would not be easily run off. The moment was ruined when Miss August stumbled out of the bathroom and threw up on the stairs.

…

Rhodey came back after the cave, wanted back in, begged to be let in.

Tony shut the door on him. He didn’t want to be that anymore. Didn’t want to be the weak and broken thing he remembered.

Atonement and bones of iron. That’s what he needed.

Not a heart.

Hearts beat and break and get smashed into a thousand pieces. The world was getting bigger and bigger around him, the very system he had supplied and now was works against was shifting. Single men were beginning to stand up against armies. What place dose a heart have in all of that?

He didn’t let Rhodey back in, and he kept Pepper in the same. Hovering outside the invisible bedroom threshold that guards his sanity. 

He’s broken now anyway. Or maybe he’s whole now and was broken before.

He doesn’t let anyone close enough to see anyway.

…

Gods fall from the sky and they pull a living fossil out of the ice. Tony watches as his father’s obsession is realised and he gets. So. Mad.

He’s not any less mad when he actually gets to meet the star spangled man. It’s a good thing that Cap is just as mad. Means that they don’t hold it against each other the next time they see each other (much).

“I wasn’t expecting much different,” Tony confesses months after he feel out of the sky over New York, “Some one of your … sepia tone, ‘wouldn’t expect you to take a shine to someone like me.”

“And what exactly are you like, Stark?”

“You haven’t seen the papers?” He scoffs at the older-younger man.

“I have,” Steve replies, taking a swig of his beer, “nothing in there I haven’t seen before.”

Tony raises an eyebrow.

“Many skirt wearing pansexuals in your time, Cap?”

“You really need to pick up a history book one day, Tony.”

“Eh. Ill download one.”

…

No matter how hard he tries his history keeps crawling out of the ground to haunt him. He’s always a war monger, a disappointment, always the one who makes the wrong decision and destroys the world.

Stark. It’s a tainted name.

He gets low. So low. No matter how many villains he defeats of people he saves his soul isn’t enough. 

Pepper tells him he has PTSD among other things. HE gets a flash back to his mother taking him to doctor office after doctors office, each one of them placing him somewhere else on the spectrum. He changes the topic and doesn’t look her in the eye for a few days.

…

After whiplash, after he destroyed his own life in a weekend and then realized that he still had to live in it, Pepper and Rhodey show up at his door. For two weeks straight.

He lets them in eventually. 

His mind is still swirling with secret files, one eyed secret agents and plans on how to be stronger and better and something that is deserving of … something. Something he can’t name yet.

He can’t look either of them in the eye. But they don’t mind.

Rhodey wraps him in his arms around Tony, pulling him against his chest. Pepper leans against his back, rubbing his side soothingly. 

“It’s alright, Tony,” Rhodey tells him, mouth brushing against his throat. Pepper hums in agreement. 

“I-“ he chokes, feeling disconnected from his body, “-I want to believe you, I-“

“Shhhh,” Pepper says softly, “It’s alright. We’ll talk about it later.”

…

They fall into bed together. All three of them.

It’s not that Tony has never thought about it before. It’s just that he never thought the two people he loves most in this world would love him back.

It takes some getting used too. Waking up tangled with Pepper as their heads compete for space on Rhodey’s chest. Too the fact that neither of them care what they are risking by being with him. 

Too how they like both his tuxedo, his knee length pattern skirt and motor oil, his spurts of nudity and manic states, and his everything in between.

He loves them completely. Would build and destroy all he was, all this world is, if it meant keeping and saving them. 

Tony’s still not sure how to process that they may feel the same way about him. 

…

On a summers day all of the Avengers, some ragtag battlers that saved their asses a few times, some super models and a handful of secret agents gather in the Stark Mansion garden for a ceremony. 

They all wear matching rings and Happy officiates through the blubbering tears.

Cap spins Aunt Peg around the dance floor, and she gives him a wink and grin when she catches sight of his rose patterned skirt. 

Both Rhodey and Pepper hold him tight. And for a long sunshine filled moment Tony believes that he is allowed this. Just for a moment be truly believes that he can be happy.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting on my computer for months, and its kinda weird but I hope you like it.


End file.
